1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a driving support apparatus configured to support driving of a vehicle by a driver.
2. Description of the Related Art
For this type of apparatus, there is known an apparatus configured to perform a plurality of types of driving support controls in accordance with various conditions. Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2013-228928 discloses an apparatus provided with a plurality of driving support systems configured to issue a warning in accordance with each of the driver's consciousness deterioration, lane departure, and possibility/probability of collision with an obstacle. Particularly in this patent literature, there is proposed a technology in which if the issue of the warning by one driving support system is predicted, the issue of the warning by another driving support system, which has a lower priority than that of the one driving support system, is prohibited.
In the technology described in the aforementioned patent literature, it is determined whether or not the driving support control is prohibited, only on the basis of the priority of the respective driving operation systems. Thus, in some situations, the driving support control to be originally performed could not be appropriately performed.
Specifically in the case of combined use of first control in which a vehicle is decelerated on the basis of the collision possibility of the vehicle and second control in which acceleration of the vehicle is suppressed by detecting a driver's erroneous operation, usually, the first control is set to have a higher priority than that of the second control. Thus, if an execution condition of the first control is satisfied even during execution of the second control, the first control is performed, instead of the second control.
In particular, here, the driving support apparatus that can perform the first control is sometimes configured to cancel the execution of the first control (i.e. to prohibit the vehicle deceleration) if it is determined that the driver has an intention to accelerate. In this configuration, the first control is possibly canceled if the vehicle is accelerated by the driver's erroneous operation, which is an execution condition of the second control. In other words, even if the first control is to be performed with priority, not the first control but the second control is possibly performed.